The Tech Bet

Will Pandora still rule music streaming space?

Christina Medici Scolaro
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Tech Yeah! Targeting Pandora
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Tech Yeah! Targeting Pandora

In the wake of growing competition, Pandora has managed to maintain its authoritative position in the music streaming industry.

But as the space gets tighter, its strategy should also be air tight.

"One of Pandora's strong suits is human-curated channels or radio stations," said Jill Duffy, analyst at PCMag.com. Pandora has a team of people creating collections rather than using an algorithm to predict what songs you like based on other music you've streamed and liked in the past.

Not one to be shy in shaking up an industry, Apple's $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics will do the same. Apple made it known its purchase of Beats was about acquiring the right people, of course led by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine.

"Apple has made it abundantly clear that the right people are still the biggest influences in music," Duffy said.

Although Pandora's almost 15 year experience in the streaming business gives them the know-how in terms of how the music and tech industries have both changed, Duffy cautions another edge Apple may have over Pandora is having its app integrated directly on to its operating system.

"If you make Beats the default streaming app, people might very well use it. Of course, that hasn't always panned out in Apple's favor. Remember Apple Maps? No one uses it. Everyone downloads Google Maps instead," Duffy said.

Regarding a threat from a possible music streaming service from Amazon, Duffy's not too concerned. "Amazon will stick to what it does best, which is sell stuff. Maybe they'll wrap music streaming into Prime as a perk, but I don't think they'll do anything revolutionary," she said.

By CNBC's Christina Medici Scolaro